Tribes seek to restore spirit by restoring buffalo
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BY JODI RAVE Lincoln Journal Star
CROW AGENCY, Mont. Leroy Stewart grew up in the Big Horn Mountains,
always with his grandfather, always close to the land. The grandfather
was a ranger who spent 40 years with the tribe's buffalo herd nestled
then, as now, in a canyon-enshrined, 22,000-acre pasture deep amid
plunging walls and rugged mountains.
The mountains here on the Crow Indian Reservation in southeast Montana
have their share of snowfalls, thunderstorms, rivers, valleys and
ponderosa pine. They offer elk, bear, deer and eagles. And they also
offer something else.
"You respect the mountain," says Stewart. "It's got a spirit."
One night about three years ago, he says five buffalo appeared in a
dream. They led him to two sitting bulls one black, one white. The
black one said: "We know where your heart is."
Stewart went with his instincts. The next day, he walked away from his
job with a chemical manufacturing company in Billings.
Like his grandfather before him, he has been working with the buffalo
ever since.
And he is far from alone in revering the animal that once provided the
Crow with daily sustenance, an animal that came to define his people.
In fact, many American Indians across the country, says Stewart, share
a common maxim: "Without the buffalo, we wouldn't be a people."
As such, there has been a phenomenal resurgence this decade between
man and mythic animal, a spiritual and cultural reawakening that has
taken root and spread quickly throughout much of Indian Country.
To wit: Six years ago, only a handful of tribes the Crow in Montana;
the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara in North Dakota; and the Oglala and
Cheyenne River tribes in South Dakota were tending to 2,500 buffalo on
40,000 acres. Today, there are 35 tribes in 16 states managing more
than 15,000 buffalo on 100,000 acres of tribal land.
"I know some individuals whose lives were completely turned around by
just coming and watching the buffalo, or by working around them," said
Gilbert Mesteth, manager of the Oglala tribal herd on South Dakota's
Pine Ridge Reservation.
The remarkable turnaround did not occur by accident.
The InterTribal Bison Cooperative, a buffalo-networking organization
for tribes based in Rapid City, S.D., is largely credited for bringing
about the revival. Founded in 1992, membership in the ITBC has grown
from 17 member tribes to 45. And it's still growing.
An event unfolding this week in Denver underscores the dramatic
growth: Today through Wednesday, the ITBC is hosting its first
national conference, "Sacred Buffalo: Back From Oblivion." Keynote
speakers at the conference include American Indian scholar Vine
Deloria Jr., a Lakota who teaches at the University of Colorado, and
N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa novelist awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
"House Made of Dawn."
Among those attending the Denver conference is Louie LaRose, manager
of the Winnebago tribal herd in northeast Nebraska. The herd, he said,
is connecting the past with the present.
"It's like opening the door to lost information," said LaRose.
The historical link between Plains Indians and buffalo is a
well-established one. For centuries, the animal provided spiritual
sustenance and daily necessities: skulls for sacred Sun Dances, brains
to tan hides, hides for tipi covers, stomach liners for cooking
vessels, hooves for glue, meat for pemmican, fat for soaps, bones for
knives, blood for puddings.
Now, say native people, it is their turn to take care of the buffalo.
In doing so, the buffalo, too, are allowing Indian people to survive
in a new way. Although Indians no longer need horns for ladles, there
are a multitude of contemporary uses: The low-fat, nutritious buffalo
meat helps diabetic patients; the growing herds provide food and new
jobs and the jobs' sorely needed income. Most importantly, perhaps, it
is fueling a spiritual and cultural rebirth.
"It's just indescribable, but when you get together with (Great Plains
tribes) from the West, you see the spiritual tie to the buffalo and
the land," said Patricia Cornelius, manager of the Oneida Tribe's
newly established buffalo herd near Seymour, Wis. "We all have one
thing in common: to help get the buffalo back to the reservation."
For many American Indians, and a growing cadre of white ranchers, this
buffalo revival seems somewhat miraculous.
Just a century ago, an animal that once roamed the continent at will
was hunted to near extinction. In a slaughter of epic proportions, the
buffalo were reduced from an estimated 50 million to fewer than 500 in
the wild by 1890.
"Even before we lost our herds, and these other tribes lost their
herds, we never lost the sense of value of the buffalo," summed up
Joseph Medicine Crow, an 85-year-old storyteller, anthropologist and
Crow tribal member who lives in Lodge Grass, Mont. "It goes back to
legendary times. In Crow legend, it's said buffalo were once human
beings."
In fact, many tribes share a kindred relationship with the buffalo.
The Lakota, for example, believe before their people emerged from an
underground world in the Black Hills, they and the buffalo shared the
same spirit. For thousands of years afterward, the buffalo or tatanka
"his greatness" in Lakota took care of them.
Now, say many native people, it is time to return the favor.
"We need to do something for the buffalo who sustained us," said Rocky
Afraid of Hawk, a member of the Cheyenne River Reservation's buffalo
program near Eagle Butte, S.D.
"There's a song out there that says the buffalo are depending on you,"
he said. "They want our help."
And they're getting it.
Buffalo prayers have been said at North Dakota's Fort Berthold
Reservation, home of the Three Affiliated Tribes the Mandan, Hidatsa
and Arikara since 1983. That year, a traditional buffalo-calling
ceremony was performed for the first time since the 1800s.
The drama-like ritual used to be done annually for the well-being of
the people. Alyce Spotted Bear, then chairwoman of the Three
Affiliated Tribes, remembers the year following the ritual's revival.
In 1984, the tribe was allowed to round up 35 buffalo from Theodore
Roosevelt National Park, animals that became its first herd.
Today the tribe grazes 235 buffalo on 13,000 acres east of Mandaree,
N.D. "We belong with the buffalo," said Spotted Bear, now a guest
lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.
LaRose, from Nebraska's Winnebago tribe, recalled how his people first
brought buffalo back to his reservation. Some tribal members initially
opposed the idea. Buffalo were a Sioux thing, they said. The animal
had no place in their tribe. LaRose said he had to remind them the
Winnebago have a buffalo clan.
Thanks to some financial help from the InterTribal Bison Cooperative,
the Winnebago now have 61 buffalo on 200 acres. Since starting the
herd four years ago, LaRose has come to know the animals, giving many
of them names like Ceva, Tonner and Mike Bison.
"When I get in the middle of them, I feel insignificant," said LaRose.
"I kind of feel like Mike Tyson after he's lost a fight."
The buffalo's return has been foretold by spiritual leaders such as
Black Elk, an Oglala holy man. But the buffalo won't come back on
their own, said LaRose. It will be up to Indian people to help them.
"Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the enormous task that lies ahead.
It's a lot bigger endeavor than just putting the animal back in the
fields."
Meanwhile, the sacred animal already is having an effect on the mental
and physical health of some tribal members, LaRose said. Winnebago
adult and youth community service workers are required to work with
the buffalo. The impact they have on the youth, he said, can be
measured by changes in both attitude and clothing.
"By the end of the year," LaRose said, "they end up being better
students. And if they come here wearing baggy pants, well they don't
wear those baggy pants anymore."
Beginning Oct. 2, the low-fat, low-cholesterol buffalo meat will be
given to the Winnebago's diabetic tribal members one-third of whom now
suffer from the disease.
Almost overnight, an active lifestyle and a diet of lean meat, fruit
and vegetables gave way to a sedentary one filled with sugar, starch
and fat.
"That was the end," said LaRose.
Instead of changing their diets, "The approach was, 'Oh, we'll cut
that foot off.' Pretty soon we had all these Winnebagos rolling around
in wheelchairs," said LaRose.
On the Oneida Reservation, the tribe's 1-year-old herd of 15 buffalo
grazes on 60 acres of lush dairyland near Seymour, Wis. They have been
a particular hit with the old people.
"There are certain elders that go out there everyday and look at
them," said Patricia Cornelius, the tribe's buffalo project manager.
While tribes such as the Oneida are tending small herds for the first
time, the Crow and Lakota maintain some of the largest and oldest
Indian-owned herds in the nation.
At the Crow Reservation, buffalo have been an integral part of the
tribe since 1934. The herd numbered 1,500 in 1965, when the U.S.
government ordered it eliminated for fear Crow buffalo might spread
the cattle disease brucellosis.
Over time, the herd was built back up to 1,200 and now numbers about
800.
The large herd now is used primarily for tribal purposes. Annually,
the Crow find honor in donating between 80 and 130 buffalo for feasts,
ceremonies, weddings, powwows and school events.
Although South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux also donate meat, skulls
and robes, the tribe is unique among the reservations: Its buffalo
represent a profitable enterprise.
"We had a self-sufficient economy at one time," said Fred Dubray,
director of Cheyenne River's Pte Hca Ka, or "All of the Buffalo,"
program. "When they destroyed the buffalo, our economy then became one
that was dependent on the federal government.
"We need to heal from the damage that was done not just in a financial
sense, but in a cultural sense, which were one and the same to Indian
people."
Today, Cheyenne River maintains 1,000 buffalo on 20,000 acres near the
Missouri River, a significant increase from the 80 it had in 1990.
Last year, the buffalo program contributed $27,000 to the tribe, which
disbursed the money among 18 reservation communities.
And even higher dividends may be in the offing.
The tribe recently acquired the nation's only portable slaughterhouse.
Bought with a $1.5 million federal grant, the unit was specially
designed by Swedish engineers, who modeled it after a slaughter unit
used to butcher Scandinavian reindeer.
With a five-man crew already in place, Dubray said plans are under way
to further market the tribe's range-fed, stress-free buffalo meat,
possibly "the best red meat in the world."
To increase marketing, the tribe needs more land to expand its herd, a
problem not unique to Cheyenne River, said Dubray. As tribal herds
increase, so do the needs to educate people about buffalo management.
Tribal member Jim Garrett, an instructor at the Cheyenne River
Community College, has responded by developing a bison management
curriculum for the tribal college.
"We need trained professional managers," said Garrett, adding that the
cultural method of management will be taught as opposed to Western
animal science.
Nine other tribal community colleges have expressed interest in
developing similar bison-management programs, he said.
"This is basically our last chance," said Dubray. "If they (buffalo)
can't make it, we can't make it."
Dubray also firmly believes if the tribe can rebuild the herds, they
can rebuild the structure of the tribe itself. "I think these buffalo
can help. They have the power to do that."
On the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota, the
Oglala Sioux run 500 buffalo on 30,000 acres. The tribe is unique in
that it also has a sharecrop program, allowing tribal members to raise
private herds.
"It's not just individuals who are interested," said Gilbert Mesteth,
tribal herd manager. "We have a waiting list. Some communities and
voting districts want to start herds. We only have a limited number of
buffalo to put into this program. But one of our goals is to have
buffalo on this reservation rather than cattle.
"It's easier to start small and start slow. Maybe by the next
generation, or the one after that, we will accomplish that goal."
Another goal is to provide enough buffalo to meet the dietary needs of
the people within five to 10 years. "The people on this reservation
know the buffalo belong to them," Mesteth said. "The buffalo are for
the people. We want to bring them back so our own people can be
strong."
Jodi Rave covers Native American issues for Lee Enterprises newspapers
and is based at the Lincoln Journal Star . This report was produced in
cooperation with the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal and the Billings
(Mont.) Gazette.
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Copyright © 1998, Lincoln Journal Star and/or Associated Press. All
rights reserved.
Louis Proyect
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